WE ARE ACCOSTED BY A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE LADY IN THE FOREST
Bowls of hot coffee and milk, with white rolls of bread to dip in them,
refreshed us at a forest inn. For some minutes after the meal Temple
and I talked like interchangeing puffs of steam, but soon subsided to
our staring fit. The pipes were lit again. What we heard sounded like a
language of the rocks and caves, and roots plucked up, a language of
gluttons feasting; the word ja was like a door always on the hinge in
every mouth. Dumpy children, bulky men, compressed old women with baked
faces, and comical squat dogs, kept the villages partly alive. We
observed one young urchin sitting on a stone opposite a dog, and he and
the dog took alternate bites off a platter-shaped cake, big enough to
require both his hands to hold it. Whether the dog ever snapped more
than his share was matter of speculation to us. It was an education for
him in good manners, and when we were sitting at dinner we wished our
companions had enjoyed it. They fed with their heads in their plates,
splashed and clattered jaws, without paying us any hospitable attention
whatever, so that we had the dish of Lazarus. They were perfectly kind,
notwithstanding, and allowed a portion of my great map of Germany to
lie spread over their knees in the diligence, whilst Temple and I pored
along the lines of the rivers. One would thrust his square-nailed
finger to the name of a city and pronounce it; one gave us lessons in
the expression of the vowels, with the softening of three of them,
which seemed like a regulation drill movement for taking an egg into
the mouth, and showing repentance of the act. 'Sarkeld,' we exclaimed
mutually, and they made a galloping motion of their hands, pointing
beyond the hills. Sarkeld was to the right, Sarkeld to the left, as the
road wound on. Sarkeld was straight in front of us when the conductor,
according to directions he had received, requested us to alight and
push through this endless fir-forest up a hilly branch road, and away
his hand galloped beyond it, coming to a deep place, and then to
grapes, then to a tip-toe station, and under it lay Sarkeld. The
pantomime was not bad. We waved our hand to the diligence, and set out
cheerfully, with our bags at our backs, entering a gorge in the
fir-covered hills before sunset, after starting the proposition—Does
the sun himself look foreign in a foreign country?
'Yes, he does,' said Temple; and so I thought, but denied it, for by
the sun's favour I hoped to see my father that night, and hail Apollo
joyfully in the morning; a hope that grew with exercise of my limbs.
Beautiful cascades of dark bright water leaped down the gorge; we
chased an invisible animal. Suddenly one of us exclaimed, 'We're in a
German forest'; and we remembered grim tales of these forests, their
awful castles, barons, knights, ladies, long-bearded dwarfs, gnomes and
thin people. I commenced a legend off-hand.
'No, no,' said Temple, as if curdling; 'let's call this place the mouth
of Hades. Greek things don't make you feel funny.'
I laughed louder than was necessary, and remarked that I never had
cared so much for Greek as on board Captain Welsh's vessel.
'It's because he was all on the opposite tack I went on quoting,' said
Temple. 'I used to read with my father in the holidays, and your Rev.
Simon has kept you up to the mark; so it was all fair. It's not on our
consciences that we crammed the captain about our knowledge.'
'No. I'm glad of it,' said I.
Temple pursued, 'Whatever happens to a fellow, he can meet anything so
long as he can say—I've behaved like a man of honour. And those German
tales—they only upset you. You don't see the reason of the thing. Why
is a man to be haunted half his life? Well, suppose he did commit a
murder. But if he didn't, can't he walk through an old castle without
meeting ghosts? or a forest?'
The dusky scenery of a strange land was influencing Temple. It affected
me so, I made the worst of it for a cure.
'Fancy those pines saying, “There go two more,” Temple. Well; and fancy
this—a little earth-dwarf as broad as I'm long and high as my shoulder.
One day he met the loveliest girl in the whole country, and she
promised to marry him in twenty years' time, in return for a sack of
jewels worth all Germany and half England. You should have seen her
dragging it home. People thought it full of charcoal. She married the
man she loved, and the twenty years passed over, and at the stroke of
the hour when she first met the dwarf, thousands of bells began ringing
through the forest, and her husband cries out, “What is the meaning of
it?” and they rode up to a garland of fresh flowers that dropped on her
head, and right into a gold ring that closed on her finger, and—look,
Temple, look!'
'Where?' asked the dear little fellow, looking in all earnest, from
which the gloom of the place may be imagined, for, by suddenly mixing
it with my absurd story, I discomposed his air of sovereign
indifference as much as one does the surface of a lake by casting a
stone in it.
We rounded the rocky corner of the gorge at a slightly accelerated pace
in dead silence. It opened out to restorative daylight, and we breathed
better and chaffed one another, and, beholding a house with pendent
gold grapes, applauded the diligence conductor's expressive pantomime.
The opportunity was offered for a draught of wine, but we held water
preferable, so we toasted the Priscilla out of the palms of our hands
in draughts of water from a rill that had the sound of aspen-leaves,
such as I used to listen to in the Riversley meadows, pleasantly
familiar.
Several commanding elevations were in sight, some wooded, some bare. We
chose the nearest, to observe the sunset, and concurred in thinking it
unlike English sunsets, though not so very unlike the sunset we had
taken for sunrise on board the Priscilla. A tumbled, dark and light
green country of swelling forest-land and slopes of meadow ran to the
West, and the West from flaming yellow burned down to smoky crimson
across it. Temple bade—me 'catch the disc—that was English enough.' A
glance at the sun's disc confirmed the truth of his observation. Gazing
on the outline of the orb, one might have fancied oneself in England.
Yet the moment it had sunk under the hill this feeling of ours vanished
with it. The coloured clouds drew me ages away from the recollection of
home.
A tower on a distant hill, white among pines, led us to suppose that
Sarkeld must lie somewhere beneath it. We therefore descended straight
toward the tower, instead of returning to the road, and struck
confidently into a rugged path. Recent events had given me the
assurance that in my search for my father I was subject to a special
governing direction. I had aimed at the Bench—missed it—been shipped
across sea and precipitated into the arms of friends who had seen him
and could tell me I was on his actual track, only blindly, and no
longer blindly now.
'Follow the path,' I said, when Temple wanted to have a consultation.
'So we did in the London fog!' said he, with some gloom.
But my retort: 'Hasn't it brought us here?' was a silencer.
Dark night came on. Every height stood for a ruin in our eyes, every
dip an abyss. It grew bewilderingly dark, but the path did not forsake
us, and we expected, at half-hour intervals, to perceive the lights of
Sarkeld, soon to be thundering at one of the inns for admission and
supper. I could hear Temple rehearsing his German vocabulary, 'Brod,
butter, wasser, fleisch, bett,' as we stumbled along. Then it fell to
'Brod, wasser, bett,' and then, 'Bett' by itself, his confession of
fatigue. Our path had frequently the nature of a waterway, and was very
fatiguing, more agreeable to mount than descend, for in mounting the
knees and shins bore the brunt of it, and these sufferers are not such
important servants of the footfarer as toes and ankles in danger of
tripping and being turned.
I was walking on leveller ground, my head bent and eyes half-shut, when
a flash of light in a brook at my feet caused me to look aloft. The
tower we had marked after sunset was close above us, shining in a light
of torches. We adopted the sensible explanation of this mysterious
sight, but were rather in the grip of the superstitious absurd one,
until we discerned a number of reddened men.
'Robbers!' exclaimed one of us. Our common thought was, 'No; robbers
would never meet on a height in that manner'; and we were emboldened to
mount and request their help.
Fronting the tower, which was of white marble, a high tent had been
pitched on a green platform semicircled by pines. Torches were stuck in
clefts of the trees, or in the fork of the branches, or held by boys
and men, and there were clearly men at work beneath the tent at a busy
rate. We could hear the paviour's breath escape from them. Outside the
ring of torchbearers and others was a long cart with a dozen horses
harnessed to it. All the men appeared occupied too much for chatter and
laughter. What could be underneath the tent? Seeing a boy occasionally
lift one of the flapping corners, we took licence from his example to
appease our curiosity. It was the statue of a bronze horse rearing
spiritedly. The workmen were engaged fixing its pedestal in the earth.
Our curiosity being satisfied, we held debate upon our immediate
prospects. The difficulty of making sure of a bed when you are once
detached from your home, was the philosophical reflection we arrived
at, for nothing practical presented itself. To arm ourselves we pulled
out Miss Goodwin's paper. 'Gasthof is the word!' cried Temple.
'Gasthof, zimmer, bett; that means inn, hot supper, and bed. We'll
ask.' We asked several of the men. Those in motion shot a stare at us;
the torchbearers pointed at the tent and at an unseen height, muttering
'Morgen.' Referring to Miss Goodwin's paper we discovered this to
signify the unintelligible word morning, which was no answer at all;
but the men, apparently deeming our conduct suspicious, gave us to
understand by rather menacing gestures that we were not wanted there,
so we passed into the dusk of the trees, angry at their incivility. Had
it been Summer we should have dropped and slept. The night air of a
sharp season obliged us to keep active, yet we were not willing to get
far away from the torches. But after a time they were hidden; then we
saw one moving ahead. The holder of it proved to be a workman of the
gang, and between us and him the strangest parley ensued. He repeated
the word morgen, and we insisted on zimmer and bett.
'He takes us for twin Caspar Hausers,' sighed Temple.
'Nein,' said the man, and, perhaps enlightened by hearing a foreign
tongue, beckoned for us to step at his heels.
His lodging was a woodman's hut. He offered us bread to eat, milk to
drink, and straw to lie on: we desired nothing more, and were happy,
though the bread was black, the milk sour, the straw mouldy.
Our breakfast was like a continuation of supper, but two little girls
of our host, whose heads were cased in tight-fitting dirty linen caps,
munched the black bread and drank the sour milk so thankfully, while
fixing solemn eyes of wonder upon us, that to assure them we were the
same sort of creature as themselves we pretended to relish the stuff.
Rather to our amazement we did relish it. 'Mutter!' I said to them.
They pointed to the room overhead. Temple laid his cheek on his hand.
One of the little girls laid hers on the table. I said 'Doctor?' They
nodded and answered 'Princess,' which seemed perfectly good English,
and sent our conjectures as to the state of their mother's health
astray. I shut a silver English coin in one of their fat little hands.
We now, with the name Sarkeld, craved of their father a direction to
that place. At the door of his hut he waved his hand carelessly South
for Sarkeld, and vigorously West where the tower stood, then swept both
hands up to the tower, bellowed a fire of cannon, waved his hat, and
stamped and cheered. Temple, glancing the way of the tower, performed
on a trumpet of his joined fists to show we understood that prodigious
attractions were presented by the tower; we said ja and ja, and
nevertheless turned into the Sarkeld path.
Some minutes later the sound of hoofs led us to imagine he had
despatched a messenger after us. A little lady on a pony, attended by a
tawny-faced great square-shouldered groom on a tall horse, rode past,
drew up on one side, and awaited our coming. She was dressed in a grey
riding-habit and a warm winter-jacket of gleaming grey fur, a soft
white boa loose round her neck, crossed at her waist, white gauntlets,
and a pretty black felt hat with flowing rim and plume. There she
passed as under review. It was a curious scene: the iron-faced
great-sized groom on his bony black charger dead still: his mistress, a
girl of about eleven or twelve or thirteen, with an arm bowed at her
side, whip and reins in one hand, and slips of golden brown hair
straying on her flushed cheek; rocks and trees, high silver firs rising
behind her, and a slender water that fell from the rocks running at her
pony's feet. Half-a-dozen yards were between the charger's head and the
pony's flanks. She waited for us to march by, without attempting to
conceal that we were the objects of her inspection, and we in good easy
swing of the feet gave her a look as we lifted our hats. That look was
to me like a net thrown into moonlighted water: it brought nothing back
but broken lights of a miraculous beauty.
Burning to catch an excuse for another look over my shoulder, I heard
her voice:
'Young English gentlemen!'
We turned sharp round.
It was she without a doubt who had addressed us: she spurred her pony
to meet us, stopped him, and said with the sweetest painful attempt at
accuracy in pronouncing a foreign tongue:
'I sthink you go a wrong way?'
Our hats flew off again, and bareheaded, I seized the reply before
Temple could speak.
'Is not this, may I ask you, the way to Sarkeld?'
She gathered up her knowledge of English deliberately.
'Yes, one goes to Sarkeld by sthis way here, but to-day goes everybody
up to our Bella Vista, and I entreat you do not miss it, for it is
some-s-thing to write to your home of.'
'Up at the tower, then? Oh, we were there last night, and saw the
bronze horse, mademoiselle.'
'Yes, I know. I called on my poor sick woman in a hut where you fell
asleep, sirs. Her little ones are my lambs; she has been of our
household; she is good; and they said, two young, strange, small
gentlemen have gone for Sarkeld; and I supposed, sthey cannot know all
go to our Bella Vista to-day.'
'You knew at once we were English, mademoiselle?'
'Yes, I could read it off your backs, and truly too your English eyes
are quite open at a glance. It is of you both I speak. If I but make my
words plain! My “th” I cannot always. And to understand, your English
is indeed heavy speech! not so in books. I have my English governess.
We read English tales, English poetry—and sthat is your excellence. And
so, will you not come, sirs, up when a way is to be shown to you? It is
my question.'
Temple thanked her for the kindness of the offer.
I was hesitating, half conscious of surprise that I should ever be
hesitating in doubt of taking the direction toward my father. Hearing
Temple's boldness I thanked her also, and accepted. Then she said,
bowing:—
'I beg you will cover your heads.'
We passed the huge groom bolt upright on his towering horse; he raised
two fingers to the level of his eyebrows in the form of a salute.
Temple murmured: 'I shouldn't mind entering the German Army,' just as
after our interview with Captain Bulsted he had wished to enter the
British Navy.
This was no more than a sign that he was highly pleased. For my part
delight fluttered the words in my mouth, so that I had to repeat half I
uttered to the attentive ears of our gracious new friend and guide:—
'Ah,' she said, 'one does sthink one knows almost all before
experiment. I am ashamed, yet I will talk, for is it not so? experiment
is a school. And you, if you please, will speak slow. For I say of you
English gentlemen, silk you spin from your lips; it is not as a
language of an alphabet; it is pleasant to hear when one would lull,
but Italian can do that, and do it more—am I right?—soft?'
'Bella Vista, lovely view,' said I.
'Lovely view,' she repeated.
She ran on in the most musical tongue, to my thinking, ever heard:
'And see my little pensioners' poor cottage, who are out up to Lovely
View. Miles round go the people to it. Good, and I will tell you
strangers:—sthe Prince von Eppenwelzen had his great ancestor, and his
sister Markgräfin von Rippau said, “Erect a statue of him, for he was a
great warrior.” He could not, or he would not, we know not. So she
said, “I will,” she said, “I will do it in seven days.” She does
constantly amuse him, everybody at de Court. Immense excitement! For
suppose it!—a statue of a warrior on horseback, in perfect likeness,
chapeau tricorne, perruque, all of bronze, and his marshal's baton. Eh
bien, well, a bronze horse is come at a gallop from Berlin; sthat we
know. By fortune a most exalted sculptor in Berlin has him ready,—and
many horses pulled him to here, to Lovely View, by post-haste; sthat we
know. But we are in extremity of puzzlement. For where is the statue to
ride him? where—am I plain to you, sirs?—is sthe Marshal Furst von
Eppenwelzen, our great ancestor? Yet the Markgräfin says, “It is right,
wait!” She nods, she smiles. Our Court is all at de lake-palace odder
side sthe tower, and it is bets of gems, of feathers, of lace, not to
be numbered! The Markgräfin says—sthere to-day you see him, Albrecht
Wohlgemuth Furst von Eppenwelzen! But no sculptor can have cast him in
bronze—not copied him and cast him in a time of seven days! And we say
sthis:—Has she given a secret order to a sculptor—you understand me,
sirs, commission—where, how, has he sthe likeness copied? Or did he
come to our speisesaal of our lake-palace disguised? Oh! but to see, to
copy, to model, to cast in bronze, to travel betwixt Berlin and Sarkeld
in a time of seven days? No! so-oh! we guess, we guess, we are in
exhaustion. And to-day is like an eagle we have sent an arrow to shoot
and know not if he will come down. For shall we see our ancestor on
horseback? It will be a not-scribable joy! Or not? So we guess, we are
worried. At near eleven o'clock a cannon fires, sthe tent is lifted,
and we see; but I am impatient wid my breaths for de gun to go.'
I said it would be a fine sight.
'For strangers, yes; you should be of de palace to know what a fine
sight! sthe finest! And you are for Sarkeld? You have friends in
Sarkeld?'
'My father is in Sarkeld, mademoiselle. I am told he is at the palace.'
'Indeed; and he is English, your fater?'
'Yes. I have not seen him for years; I have come to find him.'
'Indeed; it is for love of him, your fater, sir, you come, and not
speak German?'
I signified that it was so.
She stroked her pony's neck musing.
'Because, of love is not much in de family in England, it is said,' she
remarked very shyly, and in recovering her self-possession asked the
name of my father.
'His name, mademoiselle, is Mr. Richmond.'
'Mr. Richmond?'
'Mr. Richmond Roy.'
She sprang in her saddle.
'You are son to Mr. Richmond Roy? Oh! it is wonderful.'
'Mademoiselle, then you have seen him lately?'
'Yes, yes! I have seen him. I have heard of his beautiful child, his
son; and you it is?'
She studied my countenance a moment.
'Tell me, is he well? mademoiselle, is he quite well?'
'Oh, yes,' she answered, and broke into smiles of merriment, and then
seemed to bite her underlip. 'He is our fun-maker. He must always be
well. I owe to him some of my English. You are his son? you were for
Sarkeld? You will see him up at our Bella Vista. Quick, let us run.'
She put her pony to a canter up the brown path between the fir-trees,
crying that she should take our breath; but we were tight runners, and
I, though my heart beat wildly, was full of fire to reach the tower on
the height; so when she slackened her pace, finding us close on her
pony's hoofs, she laughed and called us brave boys. Temple's being no
more than my friend, who had made the expedition with me out of
friendship, surprised her. Not that she would not have expected it to
be done by Germans; further she was unable to explain her astonishment.
At a turning of the ascent she pointed her whip at the dark knots and
lines of the multitude mounting by various paths to behold the ceremony
of unveiling the monument.
I besought her to waste no time.
'You must, if you please, attend my pleasure, if I guide you,' she
said, tossing her chin.
'I thank you, I can't tell you how much, mademoiselle,' said I.
She answered: 'You were kind to my two pet lambs, sir.'
So we moved forward.